The invention relates to feeding offset-jogged sets of sheets.
Many devices for printing and/or processing sheets of paper, such as laser or other electronic printers, offset printers, photocopiers, and collating equipment, can be operated to produce plural "sheet sets," e.g., where each set of sheets is one copy of a multiple-page document. Successive sheet sets in the "stack" of sets are typically "offset-jogged" or "offset-stacked" with respect to one another. That is, each individual set is shifted or offset--either laterally, longitudinally, or radially--with respect to the immediately adjacent set or sets.
After being printed and/or collated, individual sheet sets are often processed, such as by covering, trimming, folding, stitching, or otherwise binding them. Such processing can occur either "on-line" or "off-line." In on-line processing, individual sheet sets are removed and transported to the processor as they are outputted from the printer or collator.
In off-line processing, the entire stack of sheet sets is transferred to the processor or processors after printing or collating is complete. The processor then identifies and processes individual sheet sets. Because processing equipment typically has a higher "throughput rate" (i.e., sheets per unit time) than printers or collators, the outputs of several printers and/or collators may be fed to a single processing unit.